November 12, iS 



Garden and Forest. 



545 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY ISY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



















ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, 



WEDNESDAY, 



NOVEMBER 



12, 189O. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Axe in its Relation to Ornamental Trees. — Problems 



for Hybridizers 545 



Evergreens in the New Jersey Pine Region Mrs. Mary Treat. 546 



Enemies of the Grapevine Phono. 547 



The Black Peach Aphis. (With figures.) Professor John B. Smith. 548 



Plant Notes: — Some Recent Portraits 549 



A Fruiting Ginkgo 549 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 549 



New or Little Known Plants : — Celastrus articulata. (With figure.). . . C. 5. S. 551 



Cultural Department : — Late Irish Potatoes in the South W. F. Massey. 551 



The Rot Among Late Potatoes...' Professor Byron D. Halstfd. 551 



Late-Flowering Asters M. Barker. 552 



Brunfelsias IF. H. Taplin. 552 



Enemies of Chrysanthemums T. D. Hatfield 552 



Ornamental Trees and Shrubs P. L. Temple. 553 



Vitis heterophylla IV. T. 553 



Correspondence: — The Hemlock in Eastern Minnesota E. J. Hill. 553 



Periodical Literature 555 



Exhibitions : — Chrysanthemums at Short Hills,' New Jersey G. 555 



Chrysanthemums at Orange, New Jersey J. 555 



Notes 556 



Illustrations : — Peach Aphid (Aphis Persic<e niger); Winged Viviparous Fe- 

 male, Fig. 70 548 



Antennal Joints of Peach Aphid, Fig. 71 548 



Antennal Joints of Cherry Aphid (Myzus cerasi, Fabr.), Fig. 72 548 



Celastrus articulata. Fig. 73 550 



The Axe in its Relation to Ornamental Trees. 



IT is a curious fact that Americans, who have destroyed 

 more trees wastefully and foolishly than the people of 

 any other country, and have stood and seen their forests, 

 the envy of the rest of the world, swept away with hardly 

 a voice raised in protest, are more unwilling than other 

 people to use the axe in cases where the cutting- of trees is 

 really essential. A hundred square miles of forest may be 

 swept by fire from some mountain range through the care- 

 lessness of an idle hunter, a mountain stream may be 

 ruined, and the fertility of a smiling valley threatened. It 

 is all taken as a matter of course, and is looked on as one 

 of those unfortunate occurrences which the community is 

 powerless to prevent. The forests of the national domain 

 are robbed of their timber, and the public is satisfied with 

 the simple acknowledgment of the general government 

 that it has not the power or authority to protect its own 

 property against the organized bands of plunderers who 

 have been preying on it for a quarter of a century or 

 longer. This indifference to trees when they are compos- 

 ing elements of the forest is a marked feature in American 

 character, and is all the more marked from its contrast with 

 our feelings about trees individually, especially trees which 

 we have planted ourselves or have seen planted. When a 

 tree is cut in one of the parks of this city there is a protest 

 raised against the so-called barbarity of the act by a 

 hundred voices which are silent about the destruction of 

 the Adirondack forests. The protest in the one case is as 

 much the result of ignorance and indifference as the silence 

 in the other; and it is as necessary to use the axe, if the 

 beauty and value of ornamental plantations are to be 

 maintained, as it is to save the forests on the headwaters 

 of important streams. 



Most people hate to see a tree cut on the grounds which 

 surround their homes, on the borders of the highway, in 

 parks or squares or other public places. This is one of the 

 principal reasons why, out of the millions of trees which 

 are planted or spring up naturally every year in the eastern 

 states, so few ever reach maturity or develop their true beauty. 



It is a rare thing in all the more settled parts of the coun- 

 try to see a well grown tree. The soil and the climate are 



favorable, nevertheless, to the growth of trees; the variety 

 which can be grown is very large, and trees have for many 

 years been planted in great numbers in and near the towns 

 of all the eastern states. The poverty of results obtained 

 from the labor and money which have been expended in the 

 embellishment of towns and of country estates by planting 

 can, in most cases, be traced to the dread of using the axe. 

 This is a fact which cannot be tepeated too often or in- 

 sisted on with too much emphasis. An Arbor Day is now 

 devoted in nearly every state to planting trees. The cus- 

 tom is a good one in so much as it draws the attention of 

 the young to trees and to their value; but the mere setting 

 of trees in the ground is by no means all that is required in 

 successful tree-culture, and some part of Arbor Day 

 ceremonies might well be devoted to the care of trees 

 already growing by supplying them with sufficient light 

 and space for their requirements. 



It is not very easy to lay down general rules for the 

 proper thinning of trees in ornamental plantations, under 

 which title we include all trees which do not grow in the 

 forest. It is an operation dependent on judgment which 

 can come only from experience ; and it must depend on 

 local conditions, such as the character of the soil occupied 

 by the plantation, the nature of the trees which compose 

 it, and the object which it is intended to serve. This 

 much, however, can be said : no tree can grow into a 

 thing of individual beauty unless it has from the begin- 

 ning of its life sufficient room for growth in all directions. 

 The branches of two trees not only should not be allowed 

 to touch until they have reached their full size, but there 

 should be sufficient space between them to enable the 

 light to penetrate to the lower branches of both trees. 

 When it is the object of the planter to produce eventually 

 the effect of a grove or of a dense wood, it is necessary to 

 keep the young plants sufficiently separated to permit the 

 growth of lateral branches for many years. If this is not 

 done, the individual trees lose vigor, become stunted and 

 die early, and the object of the plantation is not accom- 

 plished. 



It is a very common thing to find a plantation made to 

 screen some unsightly object, like a building, a highway 

 or the boundary of a park, fail to accomplish its object. 

 The foliage is all at the top of the trees, the unsightly 

 object it was intended to hide appearing between their 

 trunks. This is the inevitable result of insufficient thin- 

 ning when the plantation was young. The answer which 

 people almost invariably make to a suggestion to thin one 

 of these border plantations is, that if it is done the unsightly 

 object will be brought into prominence. On the contrary, 

 it is the neglect to thin that destroys the value of the trees 

 for the purpose for which they were planted. It is diffi- 

 cult to make people comprehend that one healthy, well 

 branched tree covered with leaves is more valuable than 

 half a dozen small, stunted trees deprived of their lower 

 branches and furnished with scanty foliage, or that crowd- 

 ing will produce this result. It is extremely difficult to 

 make people look ahead in the matter of trees or to see in 

 their mind's eye a tree twenty or thirty years after it is 

 planted. 



There are some varieties of trees which are more valu- 

 able than others on particular soils, and there are always 

 in every plantation some individuals more promising than 

 others. In thinning, those varieties and those individuals 

 which promise the longest lives and the greatest beauty 

 should be spared and the others destroyed. If a man is 

 curious about trees, he will naturally preserve the speci- 

 men of a rare species and sacrifice common trees. One 

 man may prefer to have his home surrounded by conifers, 

 and another by trees with deciduous leaves. The success- 

 ful thinning of a plantation depends on knowledge and 

 taste. The more the man who is entrusted with planning 

 work of this sort knows about trees, therefore, the more 

 successfully the work will be done. Such knowledge is 

 gained by experience, by being among trees, by thinking 

 of them in their various aspects, by living with them and 



